The prophet’s loud, booming voice had risen to a cry of joy; and Caleb repeated to Lucius, in a whisper:
“You see, my lord, he’s mad.”
But Thrasyllus, on the other side, whispered:
“He’s not mad, Lucius. … He is a seer. … He has seen. … He has perhaps seen the new God of Whom all the sibyls speak. …”
“Which new God?” asked Lucius.
“I don’t know His name,” said Thrasyllus.
But Uncle Catullus spoke:
“My dear nephew, that great monstrous fellow frightens me, here in the dark, in the desert, in front of this awful statue. Egypt gives me too many impressions. I feel like a sponge full of water, so soaked am I with impressions. Egypt will be the death of me, Lucius, you’ll see it will! Meanwhile I propose to mount my camel.”
And Uncle Catullus called his guards and drivers and bade them make his camel kneel down for him.
But Lucius went to the prophet and drew him aside:
“Do you know the past?” he asked, anxiously.
“The past?” echoed the Jewish seer, in an uncertain voice; and his eyes were as though blind.
“Do you see and can you tell me if that which I think has happened … is undoubtedly true?”
“I no longer see either the past or the future,” said the seer. “I see nothing but the present. And the present for me is nothing but … the radiant Child yonder!”
“Who is He?” asked Lucius.
“I do not know, unless He be Jahve’s Son!” cried the seer. “He was like Habel, he was like Horus. But I do not know, unless He be Jahve’s Son!”
Thrasyllus approached:
“Lucius,” he said, “let us go. The night is falling and the guards have warned us against wild animals and robbers.”
“Let Caleb give the prophet a gold piece,” said Lucius.
Caleb produced a stater; but the prophet’s laugh of thunder sent him staggering back:
“Gold!” cried the prophet, laughing like thunder. “What do I want with dead gold! I have seen living gold; I have seen the Child That was radiant gold as the sun itself, radiant as the burning bush! What do I want with dead gold!”
“He’s mad! He’s mad!” cried Caleb. “He doesn’t want gold!”
And, terrified, Caleb slipped back the stater—but into another purse, in which he collected his savings—and rushed to his camel, which was already kneeling in the sand.
In the light of the stars that twinkled over the sea of sand the travellers rode back to Memphis.
XIX
It was very early one morning and Lucius was walking alone on the opposite bank of the river. In the tender dawn the vast grey lines of Memphis became visible in rose-red silhouette.
Lucius was wandering alone. Solitude had become dear to him, like rest after a severe illness, especially because he doubted his cure. He doubted; he doubted the certainty.
Did he know the truth? He was doubting now, after a sleepless night, and asking himself, did he know the truth? And, if he knew the truth, was he really cured, cured in his sick soul, cured of his suffering?
He did not know; he no longer knew anything. He wandered beside the Nile, alone, without knowing, without knowing. A dullness filled his brain, like a mist. Life was awaking on the farms with cheerful rural activity. The grain burst under the millstones; and the women on their knees rubbed with powerful palms the dough which the men beside them had already kneaded with the vigorous dance of their feet. Lucius stopped to look on; and they laughed; and he laughed back. The men danced and the women rubbed; and they laughed and were happy. A jealousy of their happiness rose hotly in the young Roman.
“Will you give me some milk?” he asked a girl who was milking a splendid, snow-white cow.
The girl handed the stranger the milk in the hollow leaf of a cyamus-plant. Lucius did not know whether to give her any money. He drank and handed back the reed goblet:
“Thank you,” he said; and she laughed and went on milking.
He gave her no money and went on. How beautiful the world was and the morning! How rosy this first light over the silvering stream! How grey and colossal the past, yonder, of that dying, sinking city! How beautiful and impressive were every form and tint! How lovely was the world! Even the people down there, those labourers, those shepherdesses, those men and women baking, had a calm rustic, idyllic beauty in their simplicity and naturalness. How good the world was and how happy people could be, if the gods did not pour grief into their hearts!
Grief! Did he feel grief? Or had the mere thought that Ilia had proved unworthy of his great love already cured him of the disease that was grief? But was he cured and did he know?
He was approaching the hamlet of Troia.
